Editorial & Advertiser disclosure

Global Banking & Finance Review® is an online platform offering news, analysis, and opinion on the latest trends, developments, and innovations in the banking and finance industry worldwide. The platform covers a diverse range of topics, including banking, insurance, investment, wealth management, fintech, and regulatory issues. The website publishes news, press releases, opinion and advertorials on various financial organizations, products and services which are commissioned from various Companies, Organizations, PR agencies, Bloggers etc. These commissioned articles are commercial in nature. This is not to be considered as financial advice and should be considered only for information purposes. It does not reflect the views or opinion of our website and is not to be considered an endorsement or a recommendation. We cannot guarantee the accuracy or applicability of any information provided with respect to your individual or personal circumstances. Please seek Professional advice from a qualified professional before making any financial decisions. We link to various third-party websites, affiliate sales networks, and to our advertising partners websites. When you view or click on certain links available on our articles, our partners may compensate us for displaying the content to you or make a purchase or fill a form. This will not incur any additional charges to you. To make things simpler for you to identity or distinguish advertised or sponsored articles or links, you may consider all articles or links hosted on our site as a commercial article placement. We will not be responsible for any loss you may suffer as a result of any omission or inaccuracy on the website.

Home > Banking > Vietnam retail banking to place footprint on international industry forums

Vietnam retail banking to place footprint on international industry forums

Published by Gbaf News

Posted on April 15, 2013

3 min read

Last updated: January 22, 2026

Code-mau Logo Vietnam is said to be a potential market place for retail banking development, with the increasing presence of foreign brands pursuing the goal of expanding their footprint in this somehow 90 million population market. However, the local banks are also striving to emerge substantially in their own ways to maintain the majority market share with their strengths in loyal customer relationship, vast distribution network and aggressive advertising budget. Not only holding the “bigger bite” of the banking cake at home, Vietnamese banks tend to export their initial trade names abroad, which has signaled a significant recognition to the local bankers.

Apart from these exports, the local banks have tremendous attention in improving their banking technology and service quality to meet customers’ diversified banking needs nowadays. More and more local banks gain international recognition with access to banking awards of fame and honour granted by many industry publications and rating bodies. This shows how hard local banks aspire to excel their capacity towards international operation standards to compete in global integration environment.

One of these examples is the Southeast Asia Bank (SeABank), a 100% Vietnamese owned commercial bank, who has been awarded “Most Innovative Retail Bank Vietnam 2012” by the UK-based Global Banking and Finance Review (GBAF). GBAF’s award offered to SeABank in this category has significantly recognized SeABank’s outstanding achievements in its innovative state-of-the-art banking solutions serving in retail banking sector. In order to be awarded Most Innovative Retail Bank Vietnam 2012, SeABank has to meet GBAF’s strict requirements about various aspects of excellence, including brand values, corporate financial efficiency, business development capacity, risk management, operation process, advanced banking technology, retail banking product diversification, market penetration capacity and potential growth resources. GBAF’s banking awards 2012 enlists over 70 banks in the world, including regional well-known banks such as OCBC Singapore, DBS Bank (Hong Kong), Siam Commercial Bank (Thailand), Doha Bank (The Middle East), The National Australia Bank, etc. Mrs Le Thu Thuy, senior management of SeABank, says “We can now pride ourselves to stand in the same line with other foreign bankers. The award is not only a pride for SeABank in particular but also a showcase for the excellence of Vietnam retail banking in international market.” Prior to GBAF award, SeABank had been recognized by many other local and international organizations for its endless endeavour in banking technology and service quality enhancement, including The World Quality Commitment 2011-2012 prizes awarded by Business Initiative Direction (B.I.D); Asean ‘s Most Typical Enterprise 2010; Asean Brand of Fame 2012; High Straight-through Rate For Payment Processing from Wells Fargo, HSBC, Citibank during 2007 – 2012…

seabank gbaf awards

Caption: SeABank won “Most Innovative Retail Bank Vietnam 2012”

Many other local banks are awarded in different categories by The Asian Banker, Euromoney, The Financial Times, Asia Money, Global Finance, etc., which signals that local banks are on their right track of retail banking strategy and advance to higher level of competitiveness capacity over their foreign counterparts. Since the Eurozone and some other regions are struggling in their financial crisis, Asia, especially Southeast Asia, is far from being affected and more than that, it is maintaining its good shape with more and more local banks being awarded of recognition as a matter of fact. Vietnam can be a good example of the regional banking outlook when local banks are still holding more than 98% of the banking-prone population, leaving their foreign competitors behind in the race.